BLOOMING PRAIRIE — The Blooming Prairie boys basketball team had to take a road that they don’t often travel down to win in a 68-62 overtime victory over Hayfield in the first round of the sub-section 2AA playoffs Tuesday in BP.

Matt Zellmer was still the leading scorer for the Blossoms but with numbers well under his game average. The points on the night were well distributed between seven other shooters of all sizes and shapes.

Big play was found Tuesday night from Israel Clark who wasn’t even expected to play as he had re-injured his knee in a game just nine days ago in Faribault. Clark only put in three points but his play on defense was what made the big difference.

“It was great having Israel back in,” Blossom’s head coach Jon Bruns said. “Especially on defense against Kramer.”

The two big guys underneath for BP, Josh Johnson and Cooper Nelson put in a combined 18 points and brought down some serious rebounds through out the game.

“Cooper (Nelson) missed a few bunnies (shots from under the hoop) early on in the game,” Bruns said. “But he really came on strong when we needed it at the end.”

Senior Josh Toquam shot near his game average putting up 10 points and like the rest of the Blossoms squad played great defense and rebounded very strong.

The play of the night came from the Blossoms’ three guards, Austin Moe, Justen Ingvalson and Robert Hofius.

“Austin, Justen and Robert played strong from every which way tonight,” Bruns said. “Austin hit two big threes and scored ten points for us. Justen’s defense was outstanding and the biggest lift was from Hofy (Robert Hofius), he is our eighth man off the bench and he hit three big shots just at the right time when we were needing them. Every shot Hofy hit was huge.” 

The Vikings really brought it Tuesday night as they are a young team who coach Chris Pack is really proud of.

“We played well enough to win tonight,” Pack said, “But our free-throw shooting really killed us tonight. We only hit 10 of 20 and that really hurt us.”

The Awesome Blossoms on the other hand shot 19 of 23 from the charity stripe.

“When Zellmer missed a one-on-one from the foul line,” Pack said. “We had a chance to grab the ball but BP got the rebound and put it right back in for two, that really killed us there. 

On Tuesday night, like most of the season, head coach Pack has been starting one freshman, two sophomores and two juniors. 

“We are really young,” Pack said. “We are very excited about the next few years as these kids mature. We lost alot of really close games through out the season because of it but these kids are really great.”

With the first playoff game now behind both teams. The Vikings end their season 5-21 and will go home to wait for next season while the Blossoms 20-5 will travel to Austin to play Byron on Thursday at 8 pm.

BP scoring; Austin Moe 10; Josh Toquam 10 (6 rebounds); Robert Hofius 6; Matt Zellmer 17; Israel Clark 3; Justen Ingvalson 2; Cooper Nelson 15 (8 rebounds); Josh Johnson 3. 3-pointers: Moe 2; Zellmer.

Hayfield scoring; Tyler Krekling 14, Kody Kramer 14, Bobbie Stephens 12, Clint Freihert 10, Tanner Kramer 11, Evan Bungum 1; 3-pointers; Krekling-2, Bobbie Stephens 3, Clint Freihert 2, Kody Kramer 1, Tanner Kramer 2,